Well-Balanced Diet for Adolescent Girls – November 2018

Using data from What We Eat in America 2007-2010, the nutrition component of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we modeled three different scenarios in adolescent girls:

What would happen if they followed a blanket recommendation of doubling their consumption of plant-based foods in place of animal protein.

Since we anticipated overall protein consumption would decrease in scenario 1, we also showed what would happen if adolescent girls doubled their consumption of only protein-rich plant-based foods in place of animal protein.

Additionally, dietary guidelines in the United States and elsewhere recommend adolescents eat three to four servings of dairy foods per day for optimal nutrition; therefore, we also showed the impact of meeting these dietary recommendations by doubling the dairy foods currently eaten to meet those guidelines, without any further adjustments to the diet.

The results of this study show that if adolescent girls follow the general non-specific recommendations of increasing plant-based foods in place of animal foods it can lead to some nutritional benefits, but also unintended consequences, including lowered consumption of protein, and three of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines nutrients of concern-calcium, potassium and vitamin D. For adolescent girls, meeting the dietary recommendation of three servings of dairy per day improved their consumption of nutrients of concern (vitamin D, calcium, potassium) and simultaneously increased their consumption of nutrients that are essential for proper growth and bone health; however, calories should be adjusted to maintain weight.

These results reinforce the importance of a well-balanced eating plan composed of nutrient-rich foods for meeting nutrient adequacy, caloric needs and health.